FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS

Established on 1 July 1952, the Foreign Languages Press (FLP) is an international comprehensive publishing house editing, translating and publishing foreign-language books for readers abroad and textbooks and readings for readers at home. Under the jurisdiction of the China Foreign Languages Publication and Distribution Administration and abiding by the CCP’s line, the FLP functions as the country’s unified facility for foreign-language publication.

The broad scope of FLP’s publications covers not only science and technology but almost all of the humanities. For half a century, it has published numerous government documents, political theories and works of Communist leaders in forty-three languages.

Other achievements include translations of 600 first-class Chinese literary works. With the advent of reform and open-door policies in 1978, the FLP started to eye the foreign readers’ market. Besides publishing on traditional topics, the FLP further widened its scope of publication to cover background information about China, traditional Chinese culture, economy, law, history, geography, medical and health care, children’s readings and Chinese-language textbooks for foreign students.

While paying closer attention to the growing domestic market, because of China’s entry into the WTO and the prospect of its hosting the 2008 Olympics, the FLP is opening up more foreign markets, distributing books in over a hundred countries and regions by copyright transfer and cooperative publishing. The practice is dubbed ‘making imports drive exports’. FLP has a Chinese-language editorial department and various foreign-language translation departments. It has introduced collaboration between editors and translators to improve quality control and market-ability.